EF0 tornado, Camp Stewart to (Lhw)Ft Stewart Hine, Georgia, February 3, 2016

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. EF186 to 110 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 mph

   Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.

4. EF3136 to 165 mph

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. EF5over 200 mph

   Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.

7. Unrated

   The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.

Rating

EF0

Date

February 3, 2016

Touchdown

5:00 PM EST (22:00 UTC)

Lifted

5:12 PM EST (22:12 UTC)

On the ground

12 minutes

Path length

5.7 miles (9.2 km)

Path width

300 yards (274 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$5.1 million

County

Liberty County

Touchdown point

31.872, -81.625

Lift-off point

31.925, -81.563

Record number

1602031600-01

21 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS CHS, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 122 mph.

• trees snapped and big limbs in cars. bld 149 lot.
• many large pines snapped and signs broken
• tree uprooted and part of roof of picknick structure torn off. At least 3 metal light poles broken.
• 5 large uprooted trees, a snapped palm tree and many large and small limbs and branches down across the golf course.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

A cluster of low-topped supercell thunderstorms developed within a high shear/low CAPE environment ahead of a QLCS advancing into southeast Georgia. One storm in particular produced a high end EF-1 tornado with significant damage to homes and property across Fort Stewart, GA.

The National Weather Service in Charleston, South Carolina confirmed an EF-1 tornado at Fort Stewart in Liberty County Georgia with winds approximately 105 to 110 mph. The tornado began near gate 7 of the Fort Stewart base complex, likely as an EF-0, before moving northeast at approximately 35 mph through the center of the base and ending near Highway 144.||Much of the damage throughout the base was EF-0 to high end EF-1 strength. The most significant damage started at Taylors Creek Golf Course, then stretched east-northeast through a small neighborhood to Diamond Elementary School. Several large pine trees were uprooted and/or snapped throughout the golf course and neighborhood area. Approximately 6 to 10 homes were heavily damaged in this neighborhood due to large pine trees falling on them. One home had nearly 75 percent of the roof removed, but the roof was not strapped down to the walls which kept the tornado strength to a high end EF-1 rating. Three cars were also rolled over or moved approximately 20 feet in the parking lot of Diamond Elementary School. The school had roof damage on one corner of the gymnasium. As the tornado continued to move northeast, it snapped many trees and downed power lines along Hero Road near Eisenhower Village. After this point, the tornado continued northeast into a heavily wooded area with sporadic snapped trees and downed limbs until lifting near Highway 144. The tornado lasted approximately 10 to 12 minutes before dissipating at Highway 144.||Total damage reported along the path of the tornado included approximately 42 homes, 150 to 200 vehicles and 8 unit facilities within or near the Fort Stewart area. Total damage cost was estimated to be 5.08 million dollars.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:57 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.

The Charleston,SC radar (KCLX), 99 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:58 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2016 tornado in GeorgiaEvery tornado in Georgia since 1950Warnings in force in Georgia nowThe forecast where you are

3 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.